Monday, May 15, 2017

On Primaris Space Marines

Like many other people, I have been following the development of the Primaris Space Marines and the new rules that are being discussed for weeks now over at the Warhammer 40,000 community. Today, I wanted to give some assorted thoughts on the newly revealed Primaris Space Marines.

In a nut shell, they are bigger space marines that were ordered by no less than the primarch of the Ultramarines many millennia ago. It is a bit of a ret con to say the least (or perhaps it will somehow work its way in to the Black Library novels in the late days of the Horus Heresy somehow?).

In terms of stat lines, they have an extra wound compared to regular space marines and are therefore in line with 8th edition terminators. The other fact that sets them aside is the bonus attack coupled with the newly invented, manufactured and issued bolt rifle. This is better than a normal bolt gun in range and damage potential. All told, this makes the Primaris better than a space marine, but not a terminator despite gains to a number of things.

I can readily see entire chapters being built from Primaris marines. I could envision that they might also eclipse regular marines perhaps. Personally, I am hopeful that they will slot in alongside other marines in regular space marine armies with a bit of luck, as I don't want them to be over dominant for 40k.

The other thing that occurred to me is that they look reasonably like true scale marines to my modeller's eye. I therefore wonder if we will see some 30k armies (I'm looking at Alpha Legion in particular here) starting to be modelled on the Primaris design eventually? It could certainly provide a nice alternative to the usual conversions that I and many others employ to create such marines.

5 comments:

Rather than a Retcon, I would assume that this was actually something Guilliman set up post-heresy, probably after The Scouring, so the HH books haven't got there yet.

I suspect that the long-term plan is for these to eventually supplant the current SM Models, but I'm talking very long-term there. Like maybe 10 years+ before full changeover. Using the current ones would be kind of like being that guy who's still got a full Army of RT-01 Beakies. Still workable, but the aesthetic is a bit different.

It's definitely something that seemingly came out of nowhere. I can only guess that GW has a revised plan, and that plan includes the new Primaris Marines.

While I don't play loyalist Marines, I would also hate to see the Primaris overthrow the standard Marine. The Primaris is new, they're "children", where the standard Marines have existed for 10,000+ years. You can't just get rid of all that history, figuratively speaking, to push out a new line of Marines.

I think something that is being pushed a bit when you read through the comments, is that these guy are relatively untested 'in the field'. There remain question marks as to whether these are truly an improvement on the original space marine geneseed or whether it's all going to go horribly wrong at some point. Even the release post makes it clear there may be issues with some of the more extreme variations in existing geneseed (I'm looking at you, BA and SW).

Saw it yesterday, and my biggest fear is that they will just out right replace tactical marines, but when I saw the stats its clear to me that these guys are going to be a choice, as they dont look to be 'better'.

Take the 5 man squad,

It has the same woundsThe same or less attacks (not sure if +1A on the charge is in or not, if it is, then it has less)A longer range gunA better AP gunLess shots per turnNo special weaponsno heavy weapons

They look to be awesome, but will be a choice to use rather than just flat out better.

The fluff behind these is weak and they tarnish the reputation of the now lesser SM who were meant to be Humanities Finest. These are Defo the Stormcast Eternals of the 8th Edn like they were to the Empire forces.... I would have preferred no new uber-marines, but I'll get a squad or two to supplement my Relictors (weak fluff to do it, but maybe RG knows we are not Excommunicate Traitoris and loyal all along!

WIP-REVIEW: More scenery for Robotech!
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First update of this year!
I've been building the scenery sets from 4Ground I have so far:
Primera actualización del año!
He estado armando los sets de escen...

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